The Rook

by Steven James

  Now a blush whispered across her face. So he really did believe she was over eighteen. He thought she was in college! “Naw. Someone I used to trust.”

  He led her to his bike. “Ouch. Had to be a guy. Typical for those losers over at SDSU. That where he went?”

  “I go to school in Denver.” It was true, it just wasn’t the whole truth. “I’m just visiting San Diego.”

  “That’s cool.” Riker stowed Tessa’s satchel, then climbed onto his bike, and she slid on behind him. “So,” he said. “You ready to ride?”

  “I’m ready to ride.” Tessa wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, he fired up the bike, and they peeled away from the curb.

  76

  Over the years Lien-hua had seen some terrible, unthinkable things.

  And she’d always kept her cool, kept her wits about her. But today she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.

  Ever since hearing about the DVDs, she’d been thinking about the accident no one in her family ever spoke of.

  Bruised innocence.

  Stay focused, Lien-hua. Don’t get distracted.

  The arrangement would never be the same again.

  She paused, leaned against the wall just around the corner from the interrogation room, and tried to pull herself together.

  Why couldn’t Pat just stop trying to protect her?

  OK. Fine. It was flattering, but it was starting to tip her perspective, cloud her objectivity. She needed to focus and not let her feelings for him distract her.

  I don’t need protecting. I can do this on my own.

  She took a moment to slide Pat out of her mind and order her thoughts, then walked around the corner and motioned to the two officers stationed outside the interrogation room.

  They unlocked the door, and she stepped inside.

  I threw open the door to the observation room.

  Maybe I was angry at Lien-hua, maybe at Tessa, maybe at myself. I couldn’t tell. I just knew I never should have let myself have feelings for Lien-hua. That was the problem. It made it harder to be objective. Harder to step back and see things clearly.

  Detective Dunn was already seated at the table, facing the two-way mirror, musing over a pile of notes and file folders.I wasn’t in any mood to talk to him, so instead, I stared at Creighton Melice through the glass. Lien-hua had just entered the room, and Melice was eyeing her coolly. His obsidian eyes tracking her every step. I could see him, but he couldn’t see me.

  Everyone knows the bit with the two-way mirrors—that the big mirror on the wall is really a window for law enforcement personnel, but still, it’s surprisingly effective for getting suspects to talk.

  People tend to forget that others are watching them when they’re busy watching themselves.

  Melice was seated, his ankles shackled together, his wrists cuffed and attached to the table by a short chain.

  A collection of maps with crime scene photos hung on the wall to Lien-hua’s left. She took a chair from the corner of the room and dragged it to the table so that she could sit facing Melice.

  Detective Dunn stood abruptly, walked to the two-way mirror.

  “I need to tell you I’m not comfortable with this.”

  “Agent Jiang can take care of herself.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh.” I walked to him. Leaned my arm against the glass. “What exactly do you mean?”

  He glared at me. “She’s a woman.”

  Oh, man. He was pushing things too far. Way too far. “Yes, she is, Detective. And you better be careful what your next few words are. That’s a friendly warning because I’m a nice guy, but I do have my limits. Now, please. Go on.”

  He gestured toward the interrogation room. “This guy, Melice, he manipulates women. Seduces them, tortures them, kills them.

  He’ll feel more powerful, more in control, with her in there. I don’t want him toying with her.”

  “You don’t know Agent Jiang.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. And that’s what I’m worried about.”

  Lien-hua took her seat on the other side of the glass, pulled out her notepad, and started the interrogation.

  77

  Black holes.

  That’s what Lien-hua thought of as she looked across the table and into the dark pools of Creighton Melice’s eyes. She searched them for a clue to his feelings, his state of mind, but they remained emotionless and blank. As she looked him over, she noticed that he had a gauze bandage wrapped around his left hand. Possibly he’d been injured the night before in his fight with Ralph. The doctor who examined his ribs earlier in the day must have treated his hand.

  Everything that happened in the room was recorded by a video camera on the other side of the two-way mirror, but Lien-hua had discovered over the years that the visible presence of a recording device helped shake people up. Sometimes she left her recorder behind because of that. Today, she set it directly in front of her.

  Just out of his reach.

  Melice looked down at the digital recorder resting between them on the slablike table, then back to her. He wore a smirk. Still didn’t speak.

  You’re here for one reason, Lien-hua. To find out what he knows about the murders. Stay on track.

  She pressed “record.”

  “I’m Special Agent Jiang, with the FBI.”

  “I know who you are, Lien-hua. I requested you.”

  “Well, good, then we can save time with lawyers and introductions. Because I know who you are too.”

  “I doubt that.” He grinned slightly. “As you probably heard, I decided not to press charges against you for assaulting me. A few inches to the side and you would have broken a couple ribs, maybe punctured my lung. Not a bad kick for a girl.” To Lien-hua, his voice seemed to seep from his mouth as if it were coming from an open sore.

  She ignored him and spoke into the digital recorder. “The date is February 18, 2009. Time: 1553 hours. I’m interviewing Neville Worchester Lewis. Mr. Lewis, I would like to confirm that you are here under your own accord, that you have not been pressured or coerced in any way, and that you have chosen not to have legal counsel present. Are all of these statements true?”

  “They’re true. I’ve been read my rights, and I know that anything I say can and will be used, blah, blah, blah … all that crap. Let’s get started already.”

  Lien-hua leaned back in her chair. “She’s going to be all right, Neville. We got to her in time. You failed.”

  He feigned confusion. “I failed? Oh. I see. Well, I’m not sure I know what you mean by that, Special Agent Jiang. My lawyers told me this morning that seven women were killed. How tragic. Have they all been found, then? The bodies, I mean?” He paused, waited, but she refused to reply. “Agent Jiang, a baseball player who bats .350 is an all-star. If I really did connect seven out of eight times at bat, I’d have a batting average of .875; not to mention the hits I might have gotten in the minors. I wouldn’t be a failure, I’d be one of the league’s greatest stars.”

  I wanted to smack this guy, take him down right now. “We need to find out how he knows her name,” I said, speaking my thoughts aloud. “See if he has any connections to the Bureau.”

  “Sorry,” said Dunn. “I’m just here to observe.”

  Frustration.

  Building, building.

  I watched through the glass. Lien-hua didn’t seem at all fazed by Creighton Melice’s batting average comments. She just jotted something on her legal pad, flipped it over so that he couldn’t see what she’d written, and then stood up.

  The image of Cassandra in the tank rose in Lien-hua’s mind, but she wrapped the shroud of her professionalism around it, folded her arms, and leaned against the wall. “Neville, tell me what you know about Cassandra Lillo.”

  Silence.

  “Where did you first meet her?”

  Silence.

  “Would you like to give up your accomplice now, or wait until we catch him and let him blame everyth
ing on you?”

  Silence again.

  “Are you Shade, Neville? Or is Shade someone else?”

  He smiled. “Now that I’ll answer.”

  She waited.

  Every syllable became a slow drumbeat: “I don’t know who Shade is.”

  Lien-hua approached the table and looked directly into his chilling eyes. “Oh, I think you do.”

  I watched Lien-hua walk to the table, press “pause” on the digital recorder, and then lean close to him and say, “Let me explain something to you, Neville. Just so we’re clear here. I know this game better than you do and you will not win. You’re not in control anymore. I am. And I am a woman.”

  Oh, nice line, Lien-hua.

  That’s what I’m talking about.

  I noticed Melice’s left cheek twitch. He can’t stand the thought of a woman having control over him. Sweet.

  She lowered her finger and pressed “record” again.

  78

  Lien-hua watched Creighton Melice force a smile onto his face, but a sneer lurked beneath his words. “Well played, Agent Jiang. Well played. Did they teach you that at the Academy? Classic Power Plays and Intimidation Techniques? Let me guess—do whatever it takes to keep the suspect talking: threaten him, play to his ego, pacify, feign interest, become whatever he desires most in order to gain his trust—a friend, a confidant, an admirer, a mother figure, a seductress … how am I doing?”

  She let the glimmer of a smile pass across her face. “We must have taken the same course.”

  Move, countermove.

  A short silence from Melice. Yes, she’d struck something there.

  Maybe he has taken classes in criminal science. Maybe he was in law enforcement. I made a note to check on that.

  She flipped her notepad faceup, wrote something down. I couldn’t see what she was writing, and neither could she, since she kept her eyes trained on Melice the whole time.

  I noticed him stare past her to the crime scene photos Dunn had hung on the wall. I don’t like those kinds of gimmicks. The idea is to make the suspect think the authorities have mountains of evidence against him. The problem is, sometimes when innocent people see the array of evidence they get so unnerved that they start confessing to things they never did. Fear often makes people do and say things they later regret.Melice seemed to read my mind through the glass. “Are those pictures supposed to make me nervous, Agent Jiang? Get me to confess? Sorry to say, but I’m not interested in confessing any of my sins today. I’m not Catholic …” He let a sly smile play across his lips. “And you don’t look like a priest.”

  “Do you normally confess your sins, Neville?”

  “Only to God.”

  “So, you believe in God?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe in sin?”

  A pause. “Do you know what the Lord said to Cain, Agent Jiang?”

  “What did the Lord say?”

  “The Lord told him that sin was crouching at his door. That it desired to have him, but that he had to master it.”

  “And did he?”

  “No. It mastered him. The firstborn of our race murdered the second. Quite a legacy.”

  Without missing a beat: “Is that what happened to you, Neville?

  Did sin master you? Is that why you killed the women?” He refused to reply. She waited, waited, and finally said, “Neville, why didn’t you want a lawyer here today?”

  “Maybe there’s something I want to tell you that I don’t want my lawyers to know.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Come closer.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. She walked to him, set both of her hands on the table, and leaned over so that her ear was beside his lips.

  Dunn stood and walked to the two-way mirror. “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s getting him to talk,” I said. “It’s what we sent her in there to do.”Lien-hua could smell Melice’s sour breath.

  “Drowning,” he said, his voice coarse and low, “would be a terrible way to go, don’t you think, Agent Jiang?”

  Her thoughts spun sideways.

  The image of Cassandra in the tank.

  The fabric of that crimson evening gown wafting around her like curious red smoke, embracing her with a strange mixture of beauty and death.

  An elegant, designer shroud.

  Cassandra choking on water. Gasping for breath.

  And then it wasn’t Cassandra’s face anymore, but her own. Staring up pale and lifeless through the water. A dead reflection of herself.

  Lien-hua shook the thought loose. Shook it loose. “Is that why you do it, Neville?” she whispered. “Because you think drowning would be a terrible way to go?”

  They were whispering to each other. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I figured I’d ask Lien-hua about it later. They spoke for a couple moments, and then Melice smirked and Lien-hua stepped back.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “You’re interested in the way a killer thinks. Why don’t we play a little game? You ask me questions about the murders, and I’ll tell you what I think might have been going on in the killer’s mind. All hypothetical, of course; we’ll call it my best guess.”

  I’d seen this before. It’s not uncommon for killers to give their confession in the third person, recounting the events as if they were observers of, rather than participants in, the crime. Verbally distancing themselves from the crime seems to make it easier for them to confess.

  Then Melice stared directly into the two-way mirror. “How does that sound, everyone? Sound like fun?”He knew we were watching and he seemed to relish the attention. This guy would not be easily rattled.

  “All right, Neville,” she said. “Tell me what it’s like. I’ve talked to dozens of killers. Let’s see if you can do as well as they did, if you can articulate the experience eloquently enough for me to feel what a killer would feel.”

  A slow smile creased Melice’s face. He shook out a cigarette and began to fondle it in his bandaged hands. I wouldn’t have given him the pack, but Detective Dunn apparently had a different strategy.

  “Oh, I think you misunderstood me.” He massaged the table with his bandaged hand. “I don’t want you to feel like the killer. I want you to feel like the victim.”

  “OK, I’m ready,” she said. “Make me feel like the victim.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  79

  Lien-hua waited while Melice licked at his cigarette. He didn’t have a way to light it, and she wasn’t about to offer him one.

  Get him talking about what he likes, and he’ll tell you what he’s done.

  “So,” she said. “Tell me. The killer. What does he enjoy most?

  Let’s start with that.”

  “I’ll bet that, more than anything else, the killer enjoys the moments that lead up to the end. Watching his victims. Following them.

  Stalking them, and then acting like it was a chance encounter when they finally meet. To him that would be loads of fun.”

  “How does he choose them?”

  “He prefers it when they choose him.”

  Detective Dunn and I listened as Melice spun his elaborate “hypothetical” stories about a killer being in the right place at the right time to find new “girlfriends.”

  I kept telling myself he was innocent until proven guilty, but it was hard for me to believe. Everything he said was consistent with the confessions of other predatory killers I’d encountered. They’re always on the lookout for potential victims, always trolling, seeing who they can lure in.

  As he spoke I couldn’t help but notice that Melice was being careful to make his observations vague enough to be interpreted different ways. He didn’t actually confess to anything but couched everything in terms of what a killer might think or might do. He was good at this game.

  But I was banking on the fact that Lien-hua was better.

  I heard the door behind me open and recognized Ralph’s heavy footsteps.

&n
bsp; “What do we know?” I kept my eyes glued on Lien-hua and Melice.

  I heard Ralph flop a stack of papers onto the table beside me.

  “Good news and bad. The handwriting on the wall of the warehouse doesn’t match Melice’s. Based on his writing style, the analysts say he wouldn’t have made those strokes when painting the words.”

  “Is that the good news or the bad?”

  “Both. Good; it confirms there was another abductor. Bad; the second guy’s still at large. Next, criminalists’ reports. You’re not gonna like this. The metal pipes, computer in the back room, cameras, the whole freakin’ place is clean. No prints from this psycho, just a few partials on the keyboard, but they’re not Melice’s. We ran ‘em through AFIS and got nothing.”

  Why didn’t that surprise me.

  “The criminalists are at his condo now,” Ralph continued. “But so far, zilch.”

  A thought wandered past me. The idea seemed utterly unlikely but still possible. “Maybe it wasn’t him,” I said softly.

  “What?” said Dunn.

  “Maybe he was just passing through, he heard the shots that Lien-hua and I fired, and came running to see if anyone was hurt.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” he said.

  “Let’s just be careful what we assume,” I said. “Things aren’t always what they appear.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Dunn said. “Melice told Lien-hua he was batting .875 and now he’s telling her all about what it’s like to kill women.”“I’m with Dunn on this one, Pat,” said Ralph. “I think this is our man. But let’s see what else the criminalists turn up.”

  My phone trembled, and when I checked it, I saw a text message from the airline notifying me that Tessa’s flight had been delayed.

  Since I was the one who’d booked the ticket, they were using my phone number rather than hers. Her flight had been scheduled to leave over ninety minutes ago and just now they were sending me the message. How helpful.

  I shook my head. Then I left a quick voice mail for my parents, letting them know to check the flight schedule first, before leaving for the airport, and then as I was pocketing my phone again, I noticed that Melice was scratching at a moist wound beneath the bandages on his left hand. “Did you two see that?” I asked Dunn.